<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>stay forever by heckitypeck</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788936">stay forever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckitypeck/pseuds/heckitypeck'>heckitypeck</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dead Poets Society (1989)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Post-Canon, idk i cried a bit writing it, maybe? - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:08:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>669</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28788936</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/heckitypeck/pseuds/heckitypeck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s an empty desk in the middle of the classroom that feels like dead air.</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>snapshots of todd trying to cope</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Todd Anderson &amp; Neil Perry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>stay forever</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hi it's 5am, i rewatched dead poets society, cried, and dumped this out without rereading it so sorry if it sucks i am just. deeply sad anyways have fun :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s an empty desk in the middle of the classroom that feels like dead air. It’s not a place that anyone sits, for any purpose at all. Even after the name Keating feels old and distant, a rotten memory that aches the core of your deepest being, it remains a space of a forgotten energy.</p><p> </p><p>The energy that still simmers in the space in <em>his</em> corner of the room, never fails to consume Todd, even on his best days. It’s something of the old days, when he could laugh easy and free, where now he stands still and wishes he could disappear too. Some days, Neil is his worst enemy, but most days he’s still his best friend. An unfinished poem that Todd can never finish, no matter how hard he tries.</p><p> </p><p>His parents get him a new desk set and he cries himself to sleep again, the first time he’s felt in weeks. It feels empty and hollow in his chest, he’s still waiting like he always does. A week later Charlie asks him how he feels and he breaks down all over again. It never gets easier.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“Do you think he’s happier now?”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I think he’s free for once, performing his best up for all the angels to see.”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Todd isn’t sure if he believes in heaven anymore. He wants to, he wants to believe that Neil is happier, safer, in a better place, but he just imagines it as black and nothingness. He prays with his family and reads poetry at night, hopelessly thinking, trying doing anything he can to reach him. </p><p> </p><p>He thinks of snow and stomach bile and Knox’s arms around him and he can’t quite comprehend that it really was that long ago. Neil’s hands, his closest touch, his breath, his hair, his everything still burns Todd’s very being. He doesn’t know if it will ever come off his skin.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a crumpled poem on his desk, one he dug out of the trash about a week after Neil left him. It’s nothing special, something simple, but Todd wished with everything he has that Neil could see it. Sometimes he’ll be having the best day he’s had in a long time, one he’s been fighting for for the longest time. It will be beautiful, and he’ll laugh and he feels himself breaking open again, just the way that Neil did to him. The only thing he can think is that he wishes Neil were there. Everything he sees, everything he does, he wants Neil to be there to see it. It wants it so badly his chest and arms ache with the feeling.</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes he goes a week without speaking to their friends. He can’t help but wonder why it still follows him everywhere when his friends seem to be moving on and doing better, and it breaks him when he remembers it all.</p><p> </p><p>Most of his things were taken away by his parents, something that still saddens Todd. Why are they the ones who get to grieve when <em>they’re</em> the ones who took him away from us? He punches his pillow more often than he’d like to admit.</p><p> </p><p>On his worst nights, Todd looks through the play’s playbill. It has Neil’s picture in it, one of the only ones Todd still has. He hates to think about it, but he still wonders how Neil must have been feeling that night. He wishes he could tell him how amazing he was, how he would give anything to go back to that night again and see his performance one more time. To hear him say those words again, to hear him laugh and jest with the other actors on stage. He never wants to forget that night, ever.</p><p> </p><p>Todd can’t remember what the last thing Neil said to him was. He can remember so many things about Neil, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to forget what his voice sounded like, but the words get lost on him. </p><p> </p><p>Everything gets lost on him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i was gonna make it at least 1k but ykno.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>